Sean Penn Goes "Into The Wild"

New Movie Traces The Journey Of Chris McCandless Who Perished In The Alaskan Wilderness

(CBS)  The story first came to national attention in the fall of 1992, when the body of an unidentified young man was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness. Apparently he had starved to death.

In Carthage, S.D., Wayne Westerberg heard the story on the radio, and thought he knew who it was - a boy who called himself Alexander Supertramp.

"He did work for me when he was here, then he would go off on these adventures and be gone for months on end," Westerberg told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "And would write us and send postcards. We collected them, and people in town knew him and always asked about him."

Alex turned out to be a young man named Chris McCandless, from an affluent Virginia suburb, who graduated with honors from Emory University in 1990, gave all his money to charity, and disappeared into the American countryside. His family never heard from him again.

McCandless took off on a lot of adventures. Carine McCandless always believed her brother would come back.

"I missed him horribly," she said. "And I thought about him every day. But I knew what he was doing, and that he was enjoying his life. And he was free."

Jon Krakauer's story of Chris McCandless' fatal odyssey was published in Outside Magazine in 1993. Letters poured in, some extolling the boy as a hero, many condemning him as brash, perhaps even suicidal, and certainly ill-prepared to survive in the wild. By chance, the story of Chris McCandless caught the eye of Sean Penn.

"I saw this picture of the bus on the cover of this book called 'Into the Wild,'" he said. "And there was something about it that drew me to it."

Controversial, extreme and passionate - Sean Penn knew immediately he wanted to make a movie.

"The mother, Billie, called me and said she had a dream. Chris had said, 'Don't make a movie about me,'" Penn said. "I told her if I didn't respect dreams, I wouldn't make movies. And so ten years went by. And I got a call out of the blue saying, 'We're ready to see a movie made.'"

The movie, "Into the Wild," written, directed and even photographed in part by Sean Penn, opens Friday. Penn says he saw a little bit of himself in McCandless.

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Photos: Sean Penn

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"I think that I understood," he said. "I grew up as a surfer and in that testing of oneself that you do in the ocean, it makes very familiar what it was that Chris McCandless felt he had to do, and why."

McCandless set out on his own across the country, without a car, money or family connections. He was on a quest to find the person within - a journey Penn and his crew traced almost religiously.

Emile Hirsch plays Chris McCandless.

"I was literally, like, praying, 'Please send me an adventure.' And all of a sudden, you know, Sean Penn comes knocking on your door," he said. "And let me tell you, he wasn't bringing flowers. He was bringing a grizzly bear."

Part of the McCandless' journey involved a dangerous trip in a small boat down the Colorado River. Hirsch had never kayaked before but, for Penn, there was no question of using a stunt man.

"He goes, 'If I do it first, will you do it,' and I go, 'OK,' Hirsch said. "And he just goes straight into this massive rapid. And he almost makes it the whole way, so then I go, 'Well, now I gotta.'"

The scenes set in the Cabaret Bar in Carthage, South Dakota were shot in the real place. Vince Vaughn plays Wayne Westerberg, the guy who hired the kid who called himself Alex.

Chris McCandless spent almost four months in the Alaskan wilderness, recording his triumphs and defeats in his journal. Also recorded is his attempt to return to civilization, blocked by a rushing river. In the end the wilderness prevailed.

The bus where he died has become a kind of shrine undisturbed for 15 years.

"I've never heard the criticism from somebody else who was in the Alaskan backwoods by themselves for 113 days," Penn said. "That's a difficult life for 113 days. You're basically waking and sleeping, to survive all the time alone."

Wayne Westerberg thinks, but for bad luck, Chris McCandless would be telling his own story today.

"He thought that he knew enough to do this, but it did get out of control," he said. "Like the crash of an airplane, it's never just one thing that makes it crash. It's two or more things in a row that start to happen. And the end result is a wreck."

For Sean Penn, the odyssey of Chris McCandless mirrors his own personal journey.

"Facing things we can learn about ourselves is difficult in the most comfortable of circumstances," he said. "But to face the most dynamic lesson about yourself in the face of death, knowing that just as you grasp it, you're going to lose it all, is a very brave thing. And that I think is the triumph of Chris McCandless."

[feelfree1]

Re: "Into the Wild"

This was a very interesting book. I look forward to the film, and thank''s to Sean Penn for his consistent and principled stand against the Bush regime, and the illegal war against Iraq!

[hottexas]

An interesting story, but I won''t give Sean Penn a dime of my money to see it.

[rushman71]

I hope Sean Penn would stay in the wild with his hebitch Chavez!!! Oh, and FeelFree1, by all means, please join them, you communist-pathetic freak!!!

[alaskagirls]

It is a sad testiment to our American society that a movie review is reduced to a name calling high-schoolesque level when none of you have even seen the film. Your type of rhetoric make me embarrassed for my country. I have seen the movie and quite frankly, I''m glad that many won''t because of Sean Penn''s association with it. If that''s your reasoning, you don''t deserve to see it. It was beautifully shot and a very well told story. But my guess is that you wouldn''t "get" it anyway. Too bad for you. I wish you better luck in the next life.

[bwessels]

I read the book. It is simultaneously compelling, depressing, haunting, and inexplicable. Seems to me there was something missing about why he cut off his family. In the end, in the Alaskan part, it was hard to see him as heroic; more like an irresponsible idealist. I wouldn''t want to see the film, even though it has potential to be great.

[pearljamfan6]

Nicely said FeelFree1 The soundtrack is amazing too!